


Leopard Spots

by Didntchaknow



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Houseplant Flowey, I just want the gay, M/M, Overtale, Rating May Change, Slow Burn, Tags May Change, leave me be, lol this is so self-indulgent, one-shot for now, sans makes bad decisions: the fic, snow leopard - Freeform, will probably stay one-shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-04-24
Packaged: 2018-06-04 02:57:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6638527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Didntchaknow/pseuds/Didntchaknow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Papyrus watched as his brother's eyes sparkled while he talked passionately about the creature. He listened to his brother rave on and on, clearly having and endless interest in the large cat. He would willingly listen to him for hours since it was so odd for the lazybones to gain interest in anything besides physics, horrible jokes, and socks.</em>
</p>
<p>In which Sans goes to the zoo, finds an animal he likes, and then accidentally kidnaps it. <br/>(Sans makes some bad decisions in quick succession, the end.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leopard Spots

**Author's Note:**

> yo! this is just a quick one shot i did for a writing challenge and felt like posting it here, just to kinda introduce myself to the community. so, salutations! (i hope that suffices) 
> 
> i also realize that this is kind of eccentric and i have a feeling it won't be popular, but if it does, by some miracle, become liked, i would be super willing to make this into a complete fic, since i personally enjoyed writing this.  
> on that note, i would love to hear your input and critisisms, so please feel free to comment!

Sans was not satisfied.

This thought came upon him suddenly as he gazed through the chain link fence. His distal phalanges, which previously had been tapping unconsciously on the information board, stilled as he startled back into reality with the thought. 

Wasn't he satisfied? His white pupils focused in on the mystifying beast inside of the chain link cage in front of him and pondered this. No, he wasn't. Right?

But he was being allowed to breathe the same air as this cool (heh) creature and knew every fact the zoo's faded info board had provided by heart. 

_Only an estimated 3,500-7,000 snow leopards are left in the wild and only about 600-700 in zoos worldwide. It is hard to determine the exact number of wild snow leopards because of their naturally shy nature._

He thought this particular fact over, once again gazing in at the lithe creature. It was alone in its rocky habitat, one of the few enclosures located in the outside area of the zoo. Sadly, it would probably continue to be alone in its cage until the zoo was able to find another snow leopard, which could take quite a while, considering. 

Sans didn't see the shyness part of its personality; he had watched it stand from its rocky outcropping more than once, jump down, and pace the length of the inner chain link fence, though it never made eye contact with any of its few visitors, no matter how much Sans had willed it too.

Sans did, however, see a lazy, tired, fluffy, creature with a love for the cold and a barely concealed layer of loneliness and sadness, away from its natural habitat. Sans could empathize.

But watching the amazing snow leopard from behind two layers of chain link and a small child barrier made him feel like an outsider simply looking in on a situation. He hated it. So, he supposed, he wasn't satisfied. 

Unfortunately, he could not get much closer than he was at the moment. Well, he could, but that was illegal. Or for later. One of the two.

So, he just continued to commit every bit of the leopard to memory, watching it lay passively in the afternoon sun atop its outcropping. He watched its nose twitch as a new group entered the gravel courtyard in front of its enclosure, watched its large paws flex slightly and its long tail move fluidly to wrap loosely against the side of its body.

Its pale green eyes were only half-lidded, but it looked more bored than irritated and its ears were tilted forward towards the courtyard, swiveling occasionally like tiny satellites. It seemed to be observing the patrons like they were observing it, but avoided looking at any one person directly, he had noticed. 

He very badly wanted it to look at him, but his efforts were evidently in vain. 

Still caught up in his surveying of the creature, he didn't notice the booming voice of his brother until he, and the rest of the group, walked through the threshold and into the snow leopard's courtyard.

Shoving his skeletal hands into his pockets and trying to act casual, like he hadn't just been watching a large cat for the last hour or so, he turned toward the approaching posse and let his permanent grin shift to something more honest upon spotting them.

The somewhat large crew was composed of Alphys, Undyne, Papyrus, Toriel, Frisk, and Monster Kid. Asgore and Mettaton were also invited, but Asgore had come down with a nasty case of demon-child-flower transplant and Mettaton had a filming. 

Sans, of course, was also supposed to be part of the posse but had separated from them earlier after almost dying from boredom during the 'VIP' 'backstage' tour that the manager had insisted they take before they went to view the animals. He had instead begun to walk around the various enclosures on his own but hadn't gotten very far before becoming enraptured.

"SANS!! There you are! Where have you been?!" Papyrus was the first one in the group to notice sans' presence and loudly announced this fact. His gloved hands propped against his hipbones as the others walked forward to gaze through the fence, Frisk, MK and Undyne all filled with a childish glee towards anything cool-looking and animal.

Sans shrugs disinterestedly, "i was just checking out this chill cat, bro." He watched Pap's eyes narrow suspiciously and his grin grew slightly, resembling closely the cat who had caught the canary.

Sans stepped to the side, and while his brother's eyes flickered to observe the fact board behind him, his eyes watched every emotion that flickered onto his face until it settled onto a mix of disbelief, irritation and poorly concealed amusement.

"GAH!! SANS!" Pap cried, throwing his arms up in exasperation.

"c'mon pap," Sans started, as if his brother had said nothing at all, "i snow it isn't the same as a lion, but it's still pretty ice."

Pap let out a huff of indignance. "Will you ever cease to plague me with your horrible puns, brother?!" 

Sans chuckled heartily but turned and headed towards where the rest of the group had begun watching the leopard. Within a few moments, his brother was beside him, almost pressing his skull against the chainlink to view the awesome creature.

"Whoa..." he murmured, in harmony with the other children as they oohed and awed, "That creature looks like it could almost be as awesome as me."

Sans let out a puff of light laughter, but he was internally grateful and jealous that he was not the only one entranced by this beast. "yeah, it's really cool. did you know that their front legs are shorter than their back legs, which allows them to jump up to 50 feet? and, and, did you know that they use their tails as scarfs? and-"

Papyrus watched as his brother's eyes sparkled while he talked passionately about the creature. He listened to his brother rave on and on, clearly having and endless interest in the large cat. He would willingly listen to him for hours since it was so odd for the lazybones to gain interest in anything besides physics, horrible jokes, and socks. 

The other group members enthrallment was unfortunately not as endless, though, as they were slowly breaking away from the fence and eagerly skipping on to the next exhibit. Sans must have noticed this because his rambling trailed off as he gazed over and his grin became strained and slightly downtrodden.

Papyrus looked towards the group, "On to the next one, it would appear!" He paused a moment to observe sans "But if you would like to stay here, you can catch up to us at a later time??"

Sans looked back towards Papyrus and shook his head lightly. "nah i'll join you. wouldn't want you guys to get bonely without me." He winked.

Papyrus 'ugh'ed loudly to hide his smile and turned on his heel to follow the others. Sans grinned wider and gave a small chuckle, slowly following as well.

He had to force himself to not look back, but as they approached the exit he could resist no longer. Promising himself one final look, he gazed back over his shoulder.

A shiver crept up his spine as his eye sockets locked with a pair of intense and curious pale green eyes.

As he shook off his shock and turned back around, his thoughts raced. One thing was certain, though: he was coming back. 

\---

Sans pulled up his hood and braced himself against the biting winter wind, gazing up at the starry sky distractedly. While the cold didn't particularly bother him, his mind was an onslaught of bothersome thoughts. 

He had snuck out of his and Pap's house after Pap had drifted off with plans to go visit the snow leopard again, but he was currently standing on a hill nearby the zoo questioning his decisions. Did he really want risk getting in trouble just to see a cat? Short answer, yes. Plus, it was very unlikely that he would get into trouble. He did consider himself quite the sneak.

But on another hand, if he was to get caught, the consequences for being in the zoo after closing time could be bad. 

...He'd just pop in for a second. He could face the consequences if they came.

Nodding to himself, he lowered his gaze back to the zoo, eying the dark establishment slightly warily. 

Before he could get cold feet (heh), he envisioned the courtyard he had spent an hour in that very afternoon and waited until he felt the presence of a new shortcut. Grin strained, he gave the last thought of "don't try this at home, kids," and stepped through the shortcut.

When he exited the shortcut, he kept it opened for a moment as he scanned the area hastily. Finding it safe, he closed it quickly so it wouldn't continue to drain his energy and turned towards the enclosure.

Already bracing himself for the jarring eye contact of the leopard, he was almost surprised to find it sleeping deeply on top of its favorite ledge, obviously unfazed by his presence. He almost let out a shocked laugh before remembering that he definitely wasn't supposed to be here.

Instead, he opted to just observe it. It looked the most peaceful Sans had seen it, the underlying sadness and loneliness gone with the wind. It did not even snore, and Sans vaguely recalled the fact that they were one of the few large cats that could not roar. He wondered if snoring and roaring were related.

Suddenly a thought came upon him, which formed into a plan before he could push it down. _No, no, that's a horrible idea_. He chided himself. _No, stop thinking about it._

But the more he gazed at the soundly sleeping creature the more powerful the idea became. He could just pop in for a minute, observe the creature a little bit closer and leave. No harm done.

…When did his judgment get so terrible?

He frowned the best he could through his permanent grin and shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. The creature still lay asleep atop its ledge, oblivious to Sans’ troubles. It looked completely lost to the world. He could just- no, he could get attacked, and that would be horrible and the end of this whole crazy venture. He should just be happy with this much. What he was doing was already illegal.

But he still wasn’t satisfied. He shook his skull slightly, disappointed in himself for not being able to resist temptations. He never was one to follow the rules. Sighing in resignation, he opened another shortcut and, buzzing with a sort of guilty excitement, stepped through and onto one of the rocky cliffs of the habitat.

Once he breached the other side and closed the shortcut he was immediately overcome with a feeling of paranoid dread, feeling his sins crawling down his spine. As soon as his eye sockets adjusted the scenery, though, the dread was buried under a layer of excitement. 

He stood not far from where the snow leopard was sleeping, at about the same level, a few meters away. It was even more entrancing to see it from inside the fence, and from this distance, he could see the gentle rise and fall of its chest with every breath, and the slight displacement of its fur in the chilled nighttime breeze. 

He let out deep, unneeded breath and let his grimace ease into an absentminded smile. Despite everything, this was almost therapeutic. It was nice to be able to watch something else, something that reminded him so much of himself being relaxed. He was able to relax when he saw his brother happy, but this was different somehow. He wished he could stand here forever. He probably could if he severely wanted to, but it was hard to imagine that the zoo staff would be okay with his presence. Or even that the snow leopard would be, considering that it is a beast of wild nature.

He continued to think on it, drifting off into thought as a particularly cold wind blew against his back. He drifted off so far into thought in fact that he failed to notice the twitching of the snow leopard's nose, which was quickly followed by the rotating of its ears. He also failed to notice the gentle lifting of its eyelids.

Failed to notice all of its movements, in fact, until he was brought back to reality by the flashing of its night vision enabled eyes in the darkness.

The next few seconds were a rapid-fire of events. 

As Sans rejoined the conscious world, his brain quickly registered the crouched leopard in front of him, who was leaning back on its haunches, its ears focused forward and its gleaming eyes open wide. Almost immediately, fear ran through his bones and his brain proceeded to leap out of his skull. Running on instincts and habits, he swiftly drew a hand out of his pocket and watched, almost distantly, as his magic flared around his hand and then proceed to completely ensnare the leopard. As he lifted it into the air, its paws flailing underneath it fearfully, he felt his fear and adrenaline spark, which was quickly followed by a spark in his magic.

As his magic spiked, obviously causing the creature more distress, a shortcut suddenly came to life and almost instantaneously the two of the were now upon the hill outside of the zoo, both equally upset by the development.

As Sans came to a bit more, he felt his perma-grin shift into a pained grimace. He almost wanted to groan loudly, bury his skull in his hand and curse the world for forsaking him, but he didn’t want to take his eyes off the creature, in case his magic decided to become uncontrollable or just give out altogether.

So instead they just got into an intense staring contest for a moment, and while this was quite the series of unfortunate events, Sans couldn’t help but be somewhat giddy at being this close to the creature. Its ears were now pinned back, its mouth was open slightly and its eyes were still wide in what he could now tell was not, in fact, anger or aggression but instead fear. It was getting increasingly hard for him not to facepalm.

Suddenly, Sans noticed something about the large cats expression; It was furrowing its eyebrows. Was...was that something that all cats do? It looked so-

Before he could think any further on that particular topic, rapidly moving streaks of light began to trace the form of the beast, coming from either the top of its ears or the bottom of its tail, working their way into its front paw’s sharp claws and entering its paws with a burst of light. Almost as suddenly as the process had started it ended, and in the place of the snow leopard there now was a human man.

Completely bewildered and lost, Sans felt his eye burst into cyan flames in his shock, which must have caused the magic surrounding the, eh, man to do something significant, because he raised his arms in alarm, unable to back up as he was still suspended in the air.

At first, when the man opened his mouth to speak, the only sounds that snuck past his strangely feline teeth were small, fearful mewls before he managed to get out a slightly strangled sounding “Skeleton man, please remain calm,” though honestly, his voice was much to fearful to be in any way calming.

Sans reeled inwardly, disoriented. What the heck? What was going on? He gave himself a moment to process things a bit before making eye contact with the leopard-man, trying to calm down his burning eye socket. He tried to put on his outward aloof image as he attempted to formulate a question but failed. “you’re...you have magic.” Water is wet, Sans pointed out.

“Er, indeed I do.” Sure it is, the man replied.

He was obviously still fearful for his life, so Sans made a greater effort to calm his magic, successfully extinguishing his eyesocket, and lowered him slightly closer to the ground, shoving his unused hand back into his pocket. “but you’re not… ya know… one of…’us’” That was not, apparently, the right thing to say, as the man began to panic.

“Oh no, is it _still_ not acceptable for humans to have magic? Oh, oh goodness! L-look I-I’m not a human, see, see, I’m, uh, one of you!!” Another light show erupts around the man, his tall, lithe form disappearing, as suddenly Sans is met with a slightly taller, slightly different colored version of himself, wearing _his_ signature grin and looking incredibly nervous.

Sans can merely gawk inwardly for a second, bewildered, as the look-a-like's raised arms lower with each passing moment. Then, he lets out a sudden, loud guffaw, which quickly devolves into deep chuckles, overwhelmed by the absurdity of it all. As he curls in on himself a bit and wipes a nonexistent tear from his eyesocket, his laughter tapers off, and he lowers his hand slightly, setting the leopard-man-Sans down on the ground, grin a little happier.

“calm down kid, humans using magic may be frowned upon in _human_ society, but I have no plans to hurt you.” Sans offered, lowering the intensity of his magic as well.

He watched the man use his face to look relieved and Sans' grin became a bit strained. “okay, now that that's all sorted out, can you please turn into something other than a weird version of me? it's really starting to rattle my bones.” Sans winked cheesily to emphasize his joke.

“Oh! Goodness, I'm sorry about that!” Sans almost physically watched the joke fly over his head and into the void. then he watched the light show that indicated the man’s change, which was much better for his sanity. The now-human man looked somewhat flustered as he spoke. “So, I’m guessing the others of your kind must not look very much like you, then.”

“nah. well, with the exception of my bro.” The mans face fell slightly. “you should be thankful, though! if every monster was a bonehead like me the world would be a totally different place.” Sans rushed out, not liking it when the man was upset. He watched another joke fly over the top of his hair.

“I’m sure the world is a very different place without every monster looking like you.” The man admitted, most of the sadness gone from his face and tone, thankfully.

“aren’t _you_ a monster, kid?” Sans had a feeling he wasn’t, but then, what was he?

“Me?” He let out a puff of slight laughter, which was neither mocking nor happy, “No, I’m one of the few walking the middle ground. Or maybe the only one. A shapeshifter.” He said, solemn for a moment before an indistinguishable look entered his minty green eyes.

“how were you not sealed under ebott with the monsters?” Sans inquired, cutting his magic off completely and shoving his hand back in his pocket. The man didn’t seem to notice.

“I was still in my birthplace in Asia, living as a snow leopard when I even got word of a war. I had no idea a barrier even existed until it was broken.” His face was serious, and confusion leaked through the cracks. It was obvious that he was not part of human-or monster-kind whatsoever.

“how did you get here?” Sans asked, tilting his skull towards the zoo that he had broken into not even an hour prior. His tiredness was starting to come back to him a bit and he was getting lazier and lazier by the minute. he hadn’t talked this much in a long time.

The man visibly stiffened at the question, looking at the zoo instead of sans. “A group captured me while I was still living happily in the mountains. I was knocked out the ride here and couldn’t shift, and once I was in that cage I was stuck there. If I had shifted, I might have been killed on the spot.” A thought seemed to occur to him suddenly and he looked immediately panicked, darting his gaze back to sans and opening his mouth to say something.

Sans could read what he was thinking straight off his face. “don’t worry about it kid, if you don’t want to go back there I won’t take you back.” 

The man looked hopeful for a second before his face fell. “I have nowhere to go.” He admitted resignedly.

Sans had to push down a burst of excitement. “me and my bro could take you in.” He offered, nonchalantly. “we wouldn’t mind, you seem like a pretty cool cat.” Hey, that one almost brushed his scalp.

“I wouldn’t want to impose.” The man said, though his mood had visibly brightened. 

“we wouldn’t mind ya a bit.” Sans replied, grin honest.

“I can’t thank you enough, uh…” The man looked lost, and Sans couldn’t believe he hadn’t introduced himself.

“sans,” He provided, “sans the skeleton.” 

“Well, thank you again Sans.” The man suddenly shivered and for the first time Sans noticed that he was only wearing a pair of thin shorts and was, besides that, completely exposed to the wind.

“ready to go?” He asked, but started shifting direction slightly without an answer.

“Lead the way!” He responded, definitely more cheerful, for which Sans was thankful.

As they turned and began walking back, Sans deciding not to take another shortcut because of lack of energy and laziness, they lapsed into a companionable silence. It occurred to Sans that he hadn’t asked the man for his name, but before he could ask him, he spotted something on the mans back. Tilting his head slightly to get a better look, he almost stopped short as his eyesockets scanned the strange markings. 

Up and down his back, the man's skin was covered in leopard spots.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading, i hope you enjoyed!  
> please feel free to comment! c:


End file.
